Chapter 17: Handling Events

Overview

In this chapter you will learn how a window-based Java application is structured, and how to respond to user actions in an application or an applet. This is the fundamental mechanism you will be using in virtually all of your graphical Java programs. Once you understand how user actions are handled in Java, you will be equipped to implement the application-specific code that is necessary to make your program do what you want.

In this chapter you will learn:

What an event is.

What an event-driven program is and how it is structured.

How events are handled in Java.

How events are categorized in Java.

How components handle events.

What an event listener is, and how you create one.

What an adapter class is and how you can use it to make programming the handling of events easier.